CBS Sports’ lead NFL insider Jonathan Jones is closing in on a move to The Athletic, Front Office Sports reported Wednesday, a deal that would end his six-year run at CBS.
He arrived at CBS in 2019 as a senior NFL reporter, building on national writing work at Sports Illustrated and years covering the Carolina Panthers beat for the Charlotte Observer. CBS elevated him to lead NFL insider across its platforms in 2022, putting him in the chair — at the time — alongside James Brown, Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher, Phil Simms, and Nate Burleson on The NFL Today.
Jones has held his standing in the insider class even as the profession has taken heat for prioritizing transactional scoops over substance. When FS1’s Nick Wright ripped NFL insiders last October for flooding social media with “banal” transactions instead of real reporting, he singled Jones as one of a handful of names as exceptions, crediting him specifically for the weekly nuggets he delivers each Sunday morning on The NFL Today.
According to FOS, Jones would not fill Dianna Russini’s old position if the move to The Athletic goes through. His role there would center on features reporting and behind-the-scenes coverage rather than the daily insider work Russini had done.
The Athletic’s NFL desk has been down a marquee name since Russini resigned on April 14, a week after Page Six published photos of her and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel at an Arizona resort, from a role that reportedly paid her close to $800,000 annually, making her one of the highest-paid journalists at the Times Company.
As for Jones, nothing is finalized. If he does end up at the New York Times-owned outlet, it’ll be the latest gap CBS Sports has to fill in its NFL coverage ahead of the 2026 season.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.